Free Market Emancipation; K. Boudreaux

Like any institution, slavery has a history. It evolved over time, becoming more repres sive as years passed and as the forces of government coercion, such as Virginia's Slave Code, were used to restrict opportunities for blacks. In the seventeenth century, however, blacks who were either slaves or indentured ser vants had, at least in one part of the South, a unique window of opportunity open to free dom. Their story is little known, and worth a closer look because of the lessons it teaches about the power of free markets and personal freedom. In "Myne Owne Ground," professors T. H. Breen and Stephen Innes describe settle ments on the Eastern Shore of Virginia between the years 1640 and 1680.1 These communities had several interesting charac teristics. First, and perhaps most importantly, Virginia's colonial government was located far away, across the Chesapeake Bay in Jamestown. Second, tobacco, grain, and live stock could be profitably raised on the East ern Shore. And third, the common-law judges who held court on the Eastern Shore "shared Ms. Boudreaux is a research associate at Clemson University's Center for Policy & Legal Studies.

certain basic beliefs about the sanctity of property before the law.,,2 Breen and Innes tell the stories of a num ber of blacks who lived in Northampton County on the Eastern Shore during the mid-seventeenth century. These men, admit tedly few in number, were able to contract with their owners to purchase their freedom. These purchase contracts typically required the slave to provide hundreds or thousands of pounds of tobacco to the owner. A slave would meet this daunting challenge by work ing small parcels of land, which his owner allowed him to use during his spare time. If he were both ambitious and lucky, the slave might actually raise enough tobacco to meet the purchase requirements and gain his free dom. As Breen and Innes note: Self-purchase obviouslyoperated to the mas ter's advantage.... The key to understanding self-purchase is productivity, for while the great planters of the Eastern Shore required able fieldhands ... they obviously did not want people who were lazy or disobedient. For the slave, the incentives to diligence were quite limited.... One answer to the master's peren nial problem was to hold out the possibility of freedom. Such an offer provided the slave with a powerful goal, a dream, a reason to sacrifice, and even though the terms of some freedom agreements appear grossly exploitive to the modern observer, they were welcome bargains to persons who otherwise faced lifelong bond age.3 Purchasing their freedom was only the first hurdle these remarkable men faced. Once 281 282 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1997 free, they would either have to accumulate enough capital, or buy "headrights,"4 to ac quire land and supplies in order to become small, independent farmers. By renting land and growing tobacco and livestock, these men could make a living. While some failed, many did quite well, buying hundreds of acres of land and becoming well-known traders.

Race Not a Barrier to Success What is fascinating about their stories is that once they were part of the market system of Northampton County, these former slaves faced relatively little racial discrimination. They often successfully sued in Northampton courts to protect their property rights. They accumulated property and traded with whites. In short, they participated fully in the system of voluntary exchange that characterized Northampton's market economy. While so cial and political barriers existed for these men, in the market, at least, race was not a major barrier to success. The success of Northampton's free blacks provides an important lesson about the func tioning of markets. In a free market, where government interference is kept to a mini mum and where people are free to contract with one another, those individuals who are able to supply products that other people want will succeed. Buyers look for sellers who offer the best products at the lowest prices. In a free market, the quality and price of the good, not the color of the seller's skin, are what count most. Indeed, in competitive markets, if buyers refuse to purchase goods from a seller based solely on the seller's race, they hurt themselves by passing up good deals.

Racial discrimination, in other words, is costly in a market system. This lack of racial discrimination is exactly what we see in the early history of Northamp ton County. Northampton County was a thriv ing market economy in the mid-seventeenth century, with relatively little government in terference from faraway Jamestown. In this environment, we should not be surprised to find that blacks prospered and faced relatively little discrimination. So long as these freemen could provide tobacco, grain, or livestock that their neighbors or merchants wanted, they succeeded. As Breen and Innes observe, "eco nomic status rather than racial identity seems to have been the chief factor in determining how blacks and whites dealt with one anoth er.,,5 Unfortunately, this relatively brief period of economic prosperity for free blacks in Northampton County ended by the close of the seventeenth century. Breen and Innes suggest that it was the very success of the free blacks that led to their undoing. As these resourceful people accumulated property and wealth they represented a growing competi tive threat to white farmers. Faced with such unwanted competition, white settlers lobbied the government of Virginia to pass increas ingly restrictive statutes, limiting the freedom of blacks. These legislative restrictions culmi nated in the repressive Virginia Slave Code of 1705 which, Breen and Innes argue, marks the moment at which racial lines "inexorably"

hardened and "the tragic fate of Virginia's black population was finally sealed.,,6 The awful lesson of the Northampton County free blacks is that this hardening was made inevitable only by government action. Tragically, race relations in America could have evolved differently. In a community where a competitive market economy existed, where property rights were protected by the courts, and where government interference was minimal, people dealt with each other in a relatively colorblind manner. The relevance of this lesson to late twentieth-century Amer ica is all too obvious. 0 1. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, "MyneOwneGround";Race and Freedomon Virginia'sEasternShore, 1640-1676 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). 2. Ibid., p. 15. 3. Ibid., pp. 72-73. 4. The "headright" system entitled each settler to a grant from the colonial government of land, typically 50 acres. Headrights could be purchased and combined.

5. Breen and Innes, p. 111. 6. Ibid., p. 5.